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Apple's MacBook revival plan: Bring back old features

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Re: Apple's MacBook revival plan: Bring back old features

#531

Post by m463 »

rbanffy wrote: post #147
m463 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An extra port is not inconvenient - you just won't use it. A missing port is SUPER inconvenient. Can't tell you how annoying it is to require a USB-A dongle or adapter, same with HDMI.

The extra port competes with USB-C. If Apple wants to make USB-C more valuable to users, they must ensure companies make more products for it and, therefore, remove such redundant ports. I have an HDMI monitor connected to my MacBook via a USB-C to HDMI/USB dongle, which also charges the computer, keyboard and trackpad, and another another via a UDB-C to DisplayPort cable. I've been using my SDcard based camera less…

This is like a homeowner saying "cars should park in a garage".

But some people live in apartments and some people park their car most of the day at work.

This is a way of saying - not everyone parks their computer at home with a nice reliable setup completely under their control.

Some people - for many reasons - have to use setups that are out of their control. Those people will be second-class citizens, carrying an assortment of duct-tape with them (dongles).

Re: Apple's MacBook revival plan: Bring back old features

#532

Post by m463 »

oblio wrote: post #276
minikites wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The extra port competes with USB-C. If Apple wants to make USB-C more valuable to users, they must ensure companies make more products for it and, therefore, remove such redundant ports. The userbase of all tech products is too big for this to be reasonable now. This attitude was only successful during a time when fewer people overall each owned fewer devices individually. USB-A won and it will be around forever. HD…

HDMI will probably be around for TVs, but with USB 4 I imagine we're 5-10 years from most of the current ports going away completely, except for a collection of USB C ports of different levels (3, 3.x, 4).

That's a long time for people to spend extra money on apple equipment and use shitty dongles.

(apologies to dongle teams who basically put custom computers inside cables)

Re: Apple's MacBook revival plan: Bring back old features

#533

Post by dognotdog »

totalZero wrote: post #389
dognotdog wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe consider that it’s more nuanced in real life. That $12 card reader, even expensive USB-3 card readers, are often a lot slower than that builtin one. They get lost and broken, not even considering that when you’re on the go, many photographers will absolutely try to shed as much unnecessary weight as possible, as not many people are built like the hulk or have an entourage of assistants doing the heavy lifting.…

The speed of the SD is far more limiting than the speed of the card reader itself, even for USB2.0. As for whether I consider the nuances of "real life," I traveled by land across several countries with a DSLR, and took hundreds of photos a week. My DSLR has a CF slot and an SD slot; I used the SD slot for a wifi chip, and saved all photos to CF. My CF reader hasn't gotten lost or broken, and I didn't have "an entour…

USB 2.0 tops out at a theoretical 60MB/s, and in reality it is much slower, far below the read speeds of fast SD cards.

I appreciate that it’s good enough under some circumstances, but not always. Certainly not when taking several cards worth of photos a day, with only very limited time to do transfer, selection, and editing.

Re: Apple's MacBook revival plan: Bring back old features

#534

Post by ofou »

mojuba wrote: post #190
ofou wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with the TouchBar is that it disrupt the flow of attention towards the keys. The cool thing about having just ONE screen is that you can forget about looking your fingers because the content is fixed (not dynamic) and therefore can be internalized. The TB doesn't solve any problem, and by the way, it created a UX's hiccup because: Attention is limited. Focus is limited. Flow is limited. Don't break that A…

Agreed but let's also give credit to Apple for trying to innovate. The TouchBar wasn't a bad idea just that it probably wasn't tested thoroughly with all types of users. It more seems like a "I think everyone's going to love it" kind of a designer's idea. Anyway, would happily buy a model without it.

Yup, they tried. It's not something to blame them for but I don't think it was a good idea to have a dynamic touch screen at your fingers when you're supposed to be watching your screen to interface. The TouchBar breaks everything about Typing that has existed for decades now.

Re: Apple's MacBook revival plan: Bring back old features

#535

Post by Imagenuity »

Jonovono wrote: post #475
hatchnyc wrote: post #137

I use two MacBooks for programming for several hours each every single day, my personal machine has a touchbar, my work machine does not. I realize this is blasphemous to say and I did think I would hate the touchbar for all the reasons, but I actually ended up liking it. I had imagined myself tapping virtual function buttons and the whole thing seemed silly and useless and worse than having physical keys, but VS Cod…

Interesting, I would think most programmers touch type which at least for me make the touch bar useless. Since it's always changing I have to look down to see what button I am about to press. For me, if it's something common enough that the touchbars ability to change makes that functionality useful I would have found or made a keyboard shortcut for it. I just upgraded from a MacBook pro to a MacBook air for the main…

I'm accidentally hitting something on the touch bar all the time, which for me far outweighs anything useful it might do (which is never).

Re: Apple's MacBook revival plan: Bring back old features

#536

Post by ashtonkem »

MAGZine wrote: post #342
ashtonkem wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People were unhappy about the loss of the physical headphone port too .... for a short while. Then most of us went over to Bluetooth and stopped complaining. Sometimes removing ports is dumb, sometimes it’s a smart reflection of what trends are clearly already happening.

Some of us in androidland continue to buy phones specifically because the headphone jack offers a quality of life improvement more than whatever other features are offered in place of the jack.

Some of you, yes. But most people just bought (or already had) bluetooth headphones and moved on.

Re: Apple's MacBook revival plan: Bring back old features

#537

Post by MAGZine »

ashtonkem wrote: post #536
MAGZine wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of us in androidland continue to buy phones specifically because the headphone jack offers a quality of life improvement more than whatever other features are offered in place of the jack.

Some of you, yes. But most people just bought (or already had) bluetooth headphones and moved on.

I also have bluetooth headphones, but I prefer not having to worry about battery, prefer the sound quality, love the simplicity (pairing doesn't exist), and enjoy the utility (can plug into anything with an aux cord).

I can justify any inconvenience. I can justify additional expense. But in this case, I choose not to. If you choose to justify the inconvenience, that's on you—but acknowledge that it exists.

Re: Apple's MacBook revival plan: Bring back old features

#538

Post by wartijn_ »

gambiting wrote: post #516
behnamoh wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're wrong. What they want literally makes the MBP not usable for many others, whereas what I (and many others) want doesn't affect the usability/performance of the MBP for anyone.

Exactly. If you have a MacBook with two ports and you use only one, the mere presence of the second port has no effect on your life. But if your MacBook only has one port and you need two then it's an actual inconvenience. It's not like we're paying per port of like they are adding weight. It's not cars where everyone's insistence to have cars that can do everything at once leads to some SUV monstrosities which are c…

We're not paying per port, but adding more ports surely adds to the BOM, which influences to total price.

And I agree that adding one port doesn't make the device noticeably heavier. But I thought we were talking about adding multiple I/O ports, since that's what the article says and other comment are talking about adding multiple USB A and C ports, MagSave, an SD slot and even an hdmi port. Adding all those ports will increase the size of the MacBooks.

I'm not saying it's wrong to want to have more ports (I wouldn't buy a notebook with one port). I'm saying that it's strange to call people egotistical for wanting fewer ports while failing to see that adding ports has consequences other people might care about.

Re: Apple's MacBook revival plan: Bring back old features

#539

Post by cpcallen »

chrisseaton wrote: post #251
waheoo wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a bit myopic. You can strike a balance. You're argument is the same thing that led to "we should get rid of headphone jacks because we have Bluetooth." Bluetooth is an option, its not the best option, but I wouldn't suggest removing Bluetooth because we have a headphone jack.

> You're argument is the same thing that led to "we should get rid of headphone jacks because we have Bluetooth." I mean... yeah it's the same argument and I agree with both. When we got Bluetooth and decent ear pods... time to get rid of the headphone jack we don't want both, one is redundant. Simpler, cleaner, more uniform is better for these devices in my opinion.

Can't really connect my phone to venue sound systems by Bluetooth when teaching dance classes. And wouldn't want to have to be forced to choose between a 3.5mm adaptor and a charger...

This is the main reason I'm still on Android, since the last iPhone I would even consider buying was the original SE.

Re: Apple's MacBook revival plan: Bring back old features

#540

Post by bzzzt »

Kognito wrote: post #487
yarcob wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really hope that you're right, but to be honest I'm not holding my breath. I also don't think the 2015 Macbooks were perfect, it's just that I don't care about any of the new things Apple has introduced. What I would really like would be a cellular modem so I don't have to bother with hotspots on the train and maybe a stylus for marking up screenshots. For my use cases, Apple expects me to carry a Macbook, an iPad,…

Given Apple have gone cellular with everything all the way down to the Watch, I’m always amazed they never included it in a Macbook.

They expect you to have an iPhone; using that for cellular data is literally one click away.
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